In these true stories collected during his 32 years as a Registered Docker in the East End of London, Henry Bradford recounts the daring actions of docklands men in World War II. Bradford's lively descriptions and colorful characters reveal the bravery of ordinary men, from Captain Jim Fryer's ship towage work on Calais roads and Dunkirk beaches, and his rescue of survivors from the bombed hospital ship Paris (for which he was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross) to Petty Officer Jack Hicks's quieter but equally memorable mission steering a clinker-built boat on a hush-hush job from the Thames to the northeast.